The Inclusive Futures programme, UK aid’s flagship disability inclusion initiative, has shared valuable lessons after eight years of work across Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. Delivered by a consortium led by Sightsavers and the International Disability Alliance, the programme partnered with more than 200 organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), governments, INGOs, research institutions, and private-sector organisations. The new learning paper, What we have learned about disability inclusive programming, highlights the gap between commitments to inclusion and actual outcomes, stressing the importance of translating intentions into tangible results for people with disabilities.
The scale of the challenge remains significant. Over 16% of the global population lives with a disability, yet development programmes often fail to include them in efforts to reduce poverty, improve health, and strengthen communities. Between 2018 and 2022, only 7.2% of global Official Development Assistance was disability inclusive, a proportion that is shrinking as international development budgets increasingly prioritise security and defence. This underscores the urgency of designing programmes that embed inclusion from the outset rather than attempting to retrofit it later.
A key lesson from Inclusive Futures is the need for disability inclusion to be built in from the start. Retrofitting inclusion is inefficient and often unsatisfactory, while integrating it into organisational policies and practices ensures participation of people with disabilities as employees, partners, volunteers, and programme beneficiaries. The learning paper emphasises that commitment must go beyond statements, incorporating concrete mechanisms such as financing, technical expertise, and adaptive responses to implementation challenges. Reasonable accommodation, including accessible venues, communications, and materials, must be a standard feature, with mechanisms for participants to request the support they need to fully engage.
Adaptive management was central to Inclusive Futures, allowing the consortium to learn from the experiences of communities and OPDs. The programme moved beyond simple consultation, working collaboratively with OPDs throughout design, implementation, and evaluation. It also recognised the need to engage a broader and more diverse range of OPDs, ensuring that priorities from different communities were represented. A major lesson was the importance of intersectionality, particularly in responding to the experiences of women and girls with disabilities, highlighting the need for collaboration across movements rather than isolated, identity-specific programmes.
The programme also catalysed organisational transformation among consortium partners, such as Social Development Direct, which adopted more inclusive operational practices and invested in skills development. Inclusive Futures demonstrates that practical, evidence-based approaches to disability inclusion—designed from the outset and guided by lived experience—can create lasting change, providing a model for other development initiatives to follow.
